


a night-time shudder (you're pulling me in)

by orphan_account



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Billy Hargrove Needs Love, Billy Hargrove Needs a Hug, Dry Humping, Grinding, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Praise Kink, Protective Steve Harrington
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:34:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23966218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: 'When they played on the same basketball team, he would take the shower head next to Steve’s whenever it was free and flex his muscles whenever he thought that Steve might be looking; Use up all his self-control on keeping his own gaze above the waist to avoid anything embarrassing happening.Now, Steve’s helping him take his clothes off and he can’t imagine trying to draw anyone’s attention to his body again, especially Steve’s.'~Billy is healing in the aftermath of Starcourt, and newfound vulnerability peels back the last of his walls.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 52
Kudos: 423





	a night-time shudder (you're pulling me in)

When he’s finally released from the hospital, three months after his body was ripped apart and then stitched back together again in several rounds of emergency surgery, he doesn’t go back to the Hargrove-Mayfield residence.

No one tells him whether Neil had shown up when he was still in the coma, or whether he had fought to keep hold of his son, or even raised a light protest to the removal of his possessions from the house.

They don’t say anything, and they don’t need to.

_It’s fine._

He’s never wanted to spend more time with Neil than he has to, anyway. 

The Chief of police and Harrington tell him about moving his things into a spare room practically right next door to Harrington’s own, and he briefly wonders if they’d found his collection of skin mags or if Neil was going to trip over them as he inevitably trashed any remaining possessions of his that were left behind.

_He’s fine_.

He’s exactly as fine as he deserves to be.

When he takes the news silently, _too fucking tired_ to argue and _too confined to a hospital bed_ by his own broken body to walk away, the cop looks at him with a sympathetic expression, like even though he’d never met Billy, he could tell straight off the bat that a part of him was gone.

Somewhere in the one-sided conversation, Harrington reaches across and takes hold of his hand, so he tells him to _stop being a clingy bitch, Pretty Boy._

Steve doesn’t bite back, or point out the responsive, iron grip that his hand is now being held in, and he’s grateful for it.

Harrington wasn’t known for his way with words back when they were in school together, but he seemed to at least know how to shut the fuck up and let someone hold his hand too tight, like Billy’s some confused kid with an attachment disorder.

Every movement in those first few weeks sends violent, painful sparks through his stitched-up torso and torn joints and _donated blood_ , across endless stretches of scar tissue in shock waves.

A doctor who looks like he’s fresh out of fucking med school tells him that if they give him any more morphine, his body won’t be able to take it, leaving the implications unspoken and hanging in the air.

If he thought anyone at the hospital gave a shit about his opinion, he would have asked them to put it through his IV line anyway, more _because_ than _in spite of_ the consequences.

But they don’t, so he doesn’t.

Harrington sits in the uncomfortable chair beside his bed and talks to him through needles and IV hook-ups, tells him to _call him his first name, dickhead_.

When Billy asks him if ‘Pretty Boy’ is still okay, he gets an eye roll and suppressed smile back that has him grinning.

He hates spending nights in the sterile hospital room, unfamiliar and too clinical when he wakes up choking on nightmares.

One of the nurses brings him a hot water bottle and he doesn’t know what the fuck a hot water bottle is supposed to do for him while he can’t walk to bathroom to take a piss without help, and he tells her as much, but he finds that the warmth against his chest and weight in his arms is comforting in a way he doesn’t expect.

The hospital discharges him into the care of Hopper and Steve.

Steve drives him home in his car and they don’t talk about the Camaro. 

When they have to leave the car, they move slowly and take lots of breaks so he can catch his breath.

He doesn’t want to think about it, but he has to know.

‘Is that girl okay?’

They’re halfway up the stairs in Steve’s house and it’s taken a humiliatingly long time to get that far. Steve tenses and he feels it where the hand steadying him tightens around his waist.

‘Which girl? Max?’

Like he thinks Billy would refer to his sister as that.

’The one I tried to kill.’

Deadpan. Factual.

Steve’s face sets into something determined, but it could just be the task of supporting him up the stairs that does it.

‘You didn’t kill anyone.’

’Not the point of the fucking question, Pretty Boy.’

‘El’s fine.’ There’s a sharp inhale when a stitch is tugged, and they both readjust to ease the tension on it.

’She wasn’t going to be fine, but then you fucked up the thing that was trying to kill her worse than you fucked me up at that night at the Buyer’s house last year and saved her life. So she’s fine.’

He sniggers at the wording, conscious enough not to test his ribs by actually laughing.

‘I’m sorry for that, though.’

‘I’m sorry, what was that Hargrove?’

‘You fucking heard.’

Steve laughs. Smiles at him like they’ve been friends for years.

His body feels progressively more like lead and his eyelids are heavier than they were when they left the hospital.

For a second, it’s frustrating enough to make tears come to his eyes, and he focusses on the easy banter to bring himself back to whatever semblance of an equilibrium he can find.

……………………………...

When they played on the same basketball team, he would take the shower head next to Steve’s whenever it was free and flex his muscles whenever he thought that Steve _might_ be looking; Use up all his self-control on keeping his own gaze above the waist to avoid anything embarrassing happening.

Now, Steve’s helping him take his clothes off and he can’t imagine trying to draw anyone’s attention to his body again, _especially_ Steve’s attention.

His right shoulder’s fucked, and he quietly knows it’s the one Neil yanked out of its socket years ago; an injury that had taken intense physical therapy just to get back to a point that allowed him to play basketball again.

He can’t even take a shirt off properly now, and it’s not just about pain; The joint physically won’t support his arm for long enough to let him lift it above his head, and now that he actually _wants_ to cover up his body, it’s posing a problem. 

He weaves his arm out of the left singlet sleeve, and Steve manoeuvres it over his head gently, before pulling it down to slip past his right arm with minimal input from his own muscles. 

He slips on wet tiles and his own unsteady feet, and there’s too much going on all over his torso for someone to risk grabbing him there, so he finds himself being pinned to Steve’s chest by strong hands pulling him back at his hip and left shoulder.

He screams in his sleep.

His body needs rest _really fucking badly_ , but frantic movements that he can’t control mean that he pulls sutures open and rolls onto injuries almost every night. 

It took him nearly an hour to fall into a restless sleep, and now Neil is pinning him up against his bedroom wall. At some point, his knees must have buckled, but that’s not enough to give him a moment of respite when the man in front of him has been drinking. Images are firing in his mind like a montage, showing him every person that he hurt when he was flayed and _before_ he’d been flayed; The different memories blending together so fast and so scrambled that he loses track of what he is and isn’t in control of.

Neil’s voice is above him and around him, and _he can’t handle any of it._

He wakes up screaming and can’t stop, too caught up in his heart ripping through his chest and flinching away from phantom blows to notice the images have stopped, at first.

Through frantic, aborted movements and hazy snapshots of his surroundings, he realises the noise ringing in his ears is his own screaming, so he shoves a trembling palm roughly against his mouth to muffle the sounds for the few seconds before he’s able to smother the noise in his throat.

_He wants to hit something._

It’s the second time _that night_ , and his brain is getting more creative every time he closes his eyes, pulling his chest tighter and digging deeper into old and new wounds. He can’t stop crying, even though he _really_ _fucking tries to_. Hysterical, choked sounds fall from between his teeth, hurting his sternum and at least a few dozen other things upon escape.

As awareness seeps back to him in pieces, he realises the sheets are damp beneath him and for a horrifying second he thinks he’s wet the bed, because he hasn’t lost enough of his dignity already _,_ but then there are hands grabbing at him and untangling him from sheets drenched in sweat and tears, but thankfully, nothing else.

The hands finally manage to pry layers of sheets and blankets away from his thrashing frame, and his back is pulled against someone’s chest by arms wrapping around to envelop him from behind.

There’s murmuring near his ear, but the syllables aren’t translating into anything meaningful yet, and the first thing he’s truly aware of is something soft and plush being held against his chest, pressed into his body. He’s always sought out things that felt nice in his hands, and _nothing_ in his lifefeels soft and malleable anymore, but whatever object is being pressed into him is both of those things, so he instinctively moves to wrap his arms around it, cuddling it into his body.

Hands run up and down his biceps. 

’That’s it… _Easy, Billy_. You’re okay. Focus on me. Calm.’

The voice filters in more clearly, and he knows he's woken Steve again.

Looking down, he realises the soft weight in his hands is a fucking teddy bear, and he can feel his face heat up with the knowledge, but he can’t find it in himself to let it go.

The bear stays nuzzled into his chest as he catches his breath.

‘You’re with me now?’

He nods weakly.

‘I used to get nightmares. Still do, sometimes. I think um…'

Steve's voice trails off for a second, before he picks up again, gesturing loosely at the stuffed toy.

‘I think you need him more than I do. Looked like it calmed you down or something.’

Eventually, they go back to sleep, retreating to Steve’s room so they can leave the tangled, sweat-soaked mess of blankets for the morning.

Billy decides in the coming days that the only thing more embarrassing than having to acknowledge to himself that he sleeps with a teddy bear, holding onto it whenever a memory skirts too close to the surface or when his pain meds _just don’t cover it_ , is the increasingly frequent moments of panic that he experiences without it.

………………………………………..

He doesn’t know which scenario is more horrifying: The one where Steve _didn’t_ find his collection of magazines under his old mattress when he was getting his stuff, and the nausea-inducing inevitability of Neil finding them at some point, or the possibility that Steve _had_ found them, and tossed them out or stashed them away or _something._

Several weeks after being discharged from the hospital, his body gradually starts piecing itself back together just enough for his sex drive to return, a fraction of what it is when he’s not exhausted and exerting all this energy _healing_ , but _there_ for the first time since Starcourt.

Steve walks around the house shirtless some nights, a pair of sweatpants sitting _low_ on his hips- low enough for his own eyes to catch the start of a v-line that has him biting down on his lip to stop a potentially humiliating whine from escaping his mouth.

Tonight is evidently one of those nights.

He doesn’t know what show is playing on the screen in front of him, just that it’s providing enough background noise to make the repetitive physical therapy exercises bearable. The thud of heavy-footed steps entering the room pulls his attention toward Steve, and he immediately sucks in an embarrassingly sharp inhale at the sight.

Steve’s wearing his old basketball shorts from their school team, which Billy _gets,_ because they’re more comfortable than any other school-issued PT shorts he still owns from California, and honestly, they’re at least twice as flattering. 

But _Jesus,_ he’s not wearing anything else that Billy can see, and he’s barely dried from his shower, leaving his chest and neck flushed this warm, pink colour that makes him look reminiscent of images he used to jerk off to before everything went to shit.

Steve moves to stand in front of him in those tiny shorts and he has to shove down the urge to nuzzle his face into Steve’s crotch and _yeah, he can’t believe he ever tried to convince himself he wasn’t into guys._

’Shit, are you okay Billy?’ The eyes looking at him are concerned.

Steve’s voice cuts through his thought process and he realises what his reaction probably looked like to someone else, and that’s fucking embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the reality of his sharp inhale and hazy expression, so he’ll run with it.

‘I’m fine, Pretty Boy. Just jumpy. Bad night.’ 

He brings his knees up so he’s sitting in a way that safeguards the minimal dignity he has left, and tries to make it look casual, or at the very least, trying not to let on how constrictive his sweats are feeling from the sight.

Steve eyes him carefully for a second, like he’s trying to figure something out, so he averts his gaze toward the tv screen and is immediately confronted with a scene from what he can only guess is a homicide show, because that’s _definitely_ a corpse sprawled out on pavement.

He can’t help the way he flinches back from the image, but it’s enough of a boner killer to get rid of his most visible problem, so he isn’t about to turn it off.

Steve moves to sit next to him, close enough for it to look deliberate, and decisively changes the channel.

The kids start coming over now that he can move around the house without needing help and hear the oven timer go off without recoiling, especially Max. 

Max comes around without the rest of the Party sometimes, rolling her eyes at Billy and telling him that _she only came to see Steve_ , before glaring at Steve until he left the room so she could spend time with Billy alone.

He misses her. 

Surprisingly, Dustin is one of the first members of the Party, aside from Max, to actively talk to him. 

He doesn’t look at him with uncomfortable guilt or suspicion like some of the others do and he’s blasé enough to talk about topics most people wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole to Billy.

He doesn’t know why the kid seems okay with him now.

‘You know I beat the shit out of Steve once, right?

Dustin gives him a weird look.

‘No shit, I was there, remember?’

He rolls his eyes.

‘So what, did almost dying give me a free pass or something?'

Dustin cut his eyes to him and for a second, the kid actually looks serious.

’ _No._ Saving El and like, all the rest of us gave you a free pass, dickhead.’

That makes something pull in his chest, so he just nods and goes back to watching Steve interact with the kids.

Dustin isn’t finished, the little shit watches him glance over at Steve for a beat and talks, for the first time in his entire fucking life probably, in a low, confidential voice.

‘You were one of those kids that pinched other kids you had a crush on in elementary school, weren’t you?'

He nearly chokes on the water he’s drinking at the words, flailing for a second because first of all, _what the fuck,_ and second, because _okay, yeah, he did that,_ and his growl of ’Shut the fuck up, Henderson,’ is met with a look so fucking smug, he has to shove down a wave of anger before it accumulates in his chest.

………………………………………………

He corners Steve about the magazines as soon as he works up the guts to ask him about them, when they’re both in Steve’s bedroom that they spend most of their time in.

He’s reading a book for English, because he hasn’t gone back to school yet but he still wants to graduate at some point, and Steve is throwing a tennis ball back and forth in his hands, thinking about who knows what.

‘You brought most of my stuff here, when I was in the hospital, right?’

Steve fumbles with the ball.

‘Yeah, why? Something you need?’

He’s pretty sure if he was the kind of person to blush, he’d be blushing.

But he’s not, so Steve’s looking at him all clueless and he has to use his fucking words for this.

‘I had- There were these books that I had. That I can’t find.’

‘Books?’

He motions for Steve to pass the ball, needing something to do with his hands when he gets uncomfortable, and he catches it easily.

‘Magazines.’

Steve takes a beat, and then this look of realisation dawns on his face, and he kind of wishes he could just take back the question and use his own damn imagination like he did when he was younger instead of having this conversation.

‘Oh. Um. Yeah, I know what- yeah, hold up.’

And Steve gets up and pulls the pile out of his top drawer, handing them over without meeting his eye.

’Thanks.’

’So are you-?’

_Jesus_ , it was pretty much already out there, now.

‘Into cock?’

Steve _is_ the kind of person who blushes, and he’s definitely blushing now.

‘Well, yeah. I was going to say “ _Into guys,”_ or something, but.’

The tennis ball is being tossed between his hands and he’s _mostly_ sure that Steve wouldn’t have a problem with that kind of thing, but he still hasn’t ever actually _told_ anyone, so it’s making his pulse increase slightly, anyway. He’s never explained it before; the guys he used to hook up with in Cali just figured it out by the fact that he was in the same bars they were in.

‘Yeah, I like guys,’ he says, quietly and less theatrical than he’s ever said anything.

Steve motions for the ball and he throws it back to him.

’That’s cool, man. You like who you like.’

‘Yeah. Cali’s… easier for that kind of thing. Lots of people. Fucking gay pride parades once a year and everything.’

‘You ever been to one?’

’Not in Cali. Couldn’t risk Neil.’

Steve hummed. His colour had faded back to its normal shade, and the room isn’t awkward like it could have been.

‘I like girls.’

He snorts at the comment, even though it feels like a space has been carved out of his lungs.

’No shit, King Steve.’

The ball comes back toward him.

‘I like guys, too, though.’

The sentence takes too long to process, and when it does, he looks over at Steve in shock.

‘You’re bi?’

‘Yeah. I didn’t string Nancy along or anything. I just, like cock too.’

He grins at the stolen wording, feels his heart still beating just slightly quicker than normal, but for a different reason now, and beckons toward the pile of skin mags on the floor.

’So. You were just keeping these for personal use?’

’ _No._ I just didn’t want to leave them lying around your room and let Max stumble over them.’

‘You definitely looked through them, Pretty Boy.’

He’s trying to make Steve squirm.

Instead, Steve meets his eyes and smirks, a sudden wave of confidence making him look _exactly_ like the sex God the girls at their high school talked about him as being.

It makes his head spin.

The only people who really know what he’s into are the men he had gotten down on his knees for in motel rooms back home; Strangers he took immense risks on, and who he was sure he would never see again.

Now, sitting in front of Steve and trying not to melt into the floor under his newly assured, cocky expression, he works not to imagine Steve flicking through those magazines at night.

………………………………..

He’s sweaty and claustrophobic in his own fucking clothes.

Hawkins, it turns out, can experience heat waves he only ever thought he’d know from California, but he’s not spending this one submerged in ocean water.

Steve knows something’s wrong, but he’s pretty sure anyone would be able to tell; subtlety was never his strong point.

As much as it makes him sound like a chick, he used to really like his body.

He’s always had to work to put muscle on, unlike Steve, who had barely exercised since graduating and still has broad shoulder and these thighs that he can’t help but stare at.

Billy pumped weights and played basketball for years, and finally reached a point where he was proud of the lean muscle he’d accumulated for it, before he was possessed.

His body’s covered in scars now and he knows that that isn’t attractive to anyone, but he _hates_ the way his body’s changed in other ways just as much.

He’s lost a lot of muscle, and determined not to gain weight while he can’t exercise, he’s visibly thinner than he should be. Steve had noticed him picking at food he'd normally consume at a rate rivalling all the kids combined, and told him he was being a _fucking idiot,_ tried to talk to him about nutrients and _healing_ and he’d just left the room, because his fucked up relationship with his newfound body is no one’s business but his.

So he’s blasting cold water through the shower head whenever he feels like he’s going to pass out from heat-stroke, and then bundling himself right back up into sweatpants and the lightest hoodies he could steal from Steve, which still left him sweating through the material.

Steve doesn’t say anything else on the topic, keeps walking around the house in tiny basketball shorts and shooting him these worried looks every thirty seconds.

He’s doing _fine,_ until he’s not.

The kids are at Steve’s, because he has a pool that they don’t have to pay for access to, unlike the one Billy worked at over the summer. Johnathon had turned up with Will, and he could feel multiple sets of eyes on him, which he understands, cause it’s fucking weird to be in sweatpants and long sleeves like that, but he had still wanted to hide, or tell them to fuck off, or both.

Steve had been tentative at first, and Billy knew he didn’t really use the pool after what happened to Barbara, but Dustin had pushed him in and then displaced half the water in the pool jumping in after him, which had him ready to punch the little shit until they’d both come up laughing.

He’s smoking with Johnathon, watching everyone else, and he doesn’t know if Johnathon genuinely doesn’t want to swim or if he’s just taking pity on him, but it’s kind of nice, standing against the wall and seeing everyone shriek and laugh at each other.

His skin’s burning and his lips are chapped, and his vision is sort of hazy at the edges, but it’s nice.

Johnathon is saying something, and he faintly realises that he’s not smoking anymore, but he doesn’t know when he stopped, and he can’t make out the words that clearly, so he nods and hopes it’s the right response.

Dark shapes are fogging up his vision and he’s trying really hard to plant his feet, the way he’d told Steve to do after knocking him to the ground several times in the past.

Whatever Johnathon had said, apparently nodding was the wrong answer, because a hand is wrapping around his bicep and he’s trying to steady himself on legs that feel like they aren’t _there_ anymore.

He thinks someone’s yelling, but it sounds like it’s coming through cotton wool and it’s too muffled for him to understand.

There are hands reaching for him, trying to lift his top off, so he shoves blindly at whoever’s in front of him.

‘Billy? Come on, help us out…. _Get him undressed…’_

He hadn’t noticed Steve getting out of the pool, but he recognises his voice.

_‘-I don’t care…_ come on, Billy,’

It’s coming from more than one person, and it muddles together.

His legs probably give out, because he’s falling for a second, before being pulled up against someone.

Stitches are being stretched too hard on his stomach, or they at least feel like it, and he doesn’t realise the pained noise is from him until after it’s slipped out.

‘ _Jesus, Billy.’_

He’s moving, or being moved, he really doesn’t know, and his mind is too hazy to care that much.

There’s a downstairs bathroom in Steve’s house, and he thinks maybe he’s there, because he’s being held up in a sterile-looking white room by someone behind him.

Steve’s in front of him, slightly clearer now, and he’s got a hand on his jaw, trying meet Billy’s eyes.

There are hands pulling at his shirt, more of a sweater in all honesty, and it’s being pulled up before he can stop it, manoeuvred around his unhelpful limbs and dropped to the floor.

He thinks Johnathon might be in the room, might be helping Steve pull his clothes off, but he doesn’t want to think about that.

Then, it’s just them, and he’s thankful that the door was pulled closed while he still had his boxers on, but then he’s being held with his back pressed to Steve’s chest in a freezing shower, and the chill pulls him back to himself slowly.

‘You’re with me now?’

He nods clumsily.

Arms tighten further around him.

‘You gave yourself heatstroke, dickhead.’

‘Dn’t want ‘em seeing.’

It’s slurred, but probably understandable.

‘Billy. There’s nothing fucking wrong with your body.’ A hand falls to his hip and squeezes.

‘I like your body.’

He bites down on any response that he’ll regret when he’s more lucid.

………………………………….

He wakes up hard.

Him and Steve fall asleep in the same bed more often than not now; Steve wrapping his arms around him and pulling him in. When he nuzzles his face into Steve’s chest and slings his own arm over a torso stronger and more solid than his own, it’s usually enough to forget about Neil and the mind flayer and his fucked up body for enough time to fall asleep peacefully.

When he wakes up in the middle of the night, breathing heavily and sweating slightly with no explanation for it, he’s confused, because usually he remembers his nightmares with more than enough clarity.

But his heart is beating noticeably in his ribcage, and when he shifts slightly, he immediately realises what’s happening.

The fidgety movement causes his hips to rock forward slightly, and an embarrassing noise falls from his mouth as he unexpectedly grinds into a muscled thigh pressed up between his legs, a familiar heat that he hasn’t felt in months pooling in his lower body. He wants _more._ Things he’d imagined Steve doing to him ever since spotting him at school are piling up in his head and sending more blood rushing south than before.

He doesn’t _choose_ to like what he likes, the same way he doesn’t choose to like boys, specifically Steve. But he does, and images of Steve pinning him down, murmuring filthy things in his ear and taking control in a way he wishes he didn’t love, have him growing desperate.

Somehow, when they were sleeping chest to chest, Steve’s leg had moved to lay inside the gap between his own, slotting a thigh right between his legs and it feels incredible.

He realises he was _definitely_ rubbing against Steve in his sleep, and a part of him that he doesn’t like to think about too much _melts_ picturing that.

Usually, he doesn’t wake Steve up for anything short of a full-blown, visceral meltdown triggered by a nightmare.

He decides that this is the time for an exception to that self-imposed rule.

‘ _Pretty Boy.’_

He moves a hand up to shake Steve’s shoulder, probably less gently than he means to, and watches for the moment that he starts to wake. For a few seconds after opening his eyes and blinking, he looks confused, sleepy, and then he takes Billy in, raking his gaze over him in a way that makes him feel naked already.

His boxers are really uncomfortable, tight and restrictive and giving exactly how hard he is away.

Steve looks like he’s trying to figure out if he’s reached the right conclusion, and he shifts the thigh pressing up against Billy's groin forward slightly as if to check that he’s really feeling what he thinks he is.

The contact has him arching his back as he rolls his hips down into Steve, who looks at least as affected by it all as he is.

‘ _Fuck, Billy_.’

Steve inhales sharply, and he can see his body language shift into something more dominant before he’s being pulled in closer, his face falling into the crook of Steve’s neck as they nuzzle into each other. Steve is pressed up against his hip, and though thin boxers, he can feel that he’s hard, and he moans.

It’s been a while for him, and admittedly, he’s not the best at keeping quiet in _any_ area of his life, so he mouths around Steve’s collarbone and tries to keep his lips busy, quiet.

Steve breathes shakily beside him, before tugging lightly on his hair and tilting his face upward toward him.

The room is only just light enough for him to make out the expression on Steve’s face.

The fucker’s smirking.

It makes him feel needier, and he tries to keep _that_ humiliating fact from showing on his face. Steve’s looking at him, tracing fingers through his hair and when he’s focussed on how soft the motion feels, another hand moves forward to cup him firmly through his underwear, pressing closely into him and holding still. The sensation has him arching his back and whining while Steve just watches him, and even as sees how smug and fond the boy next to him looks, he can’t help grinding forward, rubbing himself into Steve’s hand to feel the pleasure build up.

Steve kisses him, just sort of presses their lips together in a movement that’s too gentle for the cocky way he’s making Billy rub himself against his palm, and Billy feels his lips curve upwards against his own when he unintentionally moans into the kiss.

His hands are tracing over Steve’s body, stronger and more muscular than he even used to be, way less fragile than his own torso now.

A hand strokes up and down his back now, and Steve’s breaking the kiss to lean in and whisper something, pressing a quick kiss against his neck before speaking.

‘Do you want this?’

Whatever _this_ is, he really, _really_ fucking wants it, trying hard to not look entirely desperate.

He nods, tries to answer with something coherent, but as soon as he opens his mouth to respond verbally, Steve puts a hand on his hip to stop him from grinding forward, nipping at his neck as he does and Billy just sort of mewls into him, displeased and needy.

It’s humiliating, the way he’s falling apart just from rutting against Steve’s leg, frustrated at the material separating him from skin.

He’s always loved this, being manoeuvred and pinned and letting someone else be strong for a change, but he can’t help the slight panic that maybe Steve wants him to be as forceful and domineering as he likes to give the impression of being.

He runs a hand over the side of Steve’s torso and leans in, expecting Steve to roll onto his back and let him take control.

Instead, Steve fucking chuckles against his neck, running the hand on his back down lower to grab at his ass through the material of his boxers and squeezes, causing him to push back into the palm and make this breathy, keening sound.

‘ _Jesus, Billy.’_

He’s being rolled onto his back and then Steve’s body presses down against him, boxing him in and making him feel small in a way he hates to admit that he loves.

Steve is sucking a bruise into his neck, licking over it every time he nips at it with his teeth, and the sharp sting met with the soothing suckling motion has him whining, pressing his hips up in a desperate search for friction that Steve doesn’t meet him with.

‘You like this, don’t you? Me being in charge _?’_

It wasn’t really a question, he sounds too sure of himself for that.

‘ _I saw the corners you folded down in that magazine.’_

Billy sucks in a breath at that, remembering the way he’d marked down pages that made him _feel things_ , and apparently, Steve had taken notice. 

There are hands pulling his boxers down his hips, and he’s far from being a virgin, but this feels more intimate than anything he’s done before, and the way Steve looks down at him, at his scarred body and flushed chest and hard cock, completely on display, makes his head spin. 

Steve looks determined and solid and _hungry,_ taking his own boxers off before climbing back on top of him, a hand pushing down on his hip to stop him from grinding up into him.

‘ _You’re gorgeous like this.’_ Each statement is punctuated by a kiss to his neck or a nip to his earlobe.

‘ _I love seeing you all needy.’_

Steve is purring every word into his ear and he feels dizzy, almost like he’s slipping into that wonderful, submissive headspace he’s only reached a few times before and they’ve barely done anything.

A hand reaches down to grab his leg from the back of his knee, and it’s being folded, held up and out to the side by Steve’s hand and leaving him feeling more exposed than before, put on display and taken care of all at once, so that he couldn’t close his legs and hide away if he wanted to.

‘ _You’re so good, Billy.’_

Then Steve is grinding into him, rolling his hips down into Billy's and his brain is short circuiting as Steve’s cock finally makes contact with his own, pleasure rolling through his lower body with each movement. The sensation that runs through him and the weight pressed down into him has him babbling and clinging to Steve as he soaks up the praise coming his way.

‘ _You’re so good, Billy. I love the noises you make for me, baby.’_

The words send him further and further into a blissed out, hazy place in his head.

Steve’s cock is bigger than his own- not by much, but just enough that he notices, and he’s pretty sure it should bother him but instead, it turns him on more.

The movements are losing their rhythm, becoming quicker and more frantic on both ends, and the tight coil of heat and sensation is building and building in his lower stomach.

Steve uses the hand he’s holding Billy’s thigh up with to bring his leg down, and Billy instead wraps it around Steve’s lower body without hesitation, trying to pull him closer against him.

Steve’s free hand reaches between their bodies to take both of them together in his hand.

The firm grip on his cock and the incredible feeling of Steve’s own member held closely against him has Billy rapidly approaching the edge, heat coiling low in his stomach, his balls tightening up in the tell-tale way, and it’s almost overwhelming to hover on the brink of orgasm with Steve.

His arms are wrapped around the body above him, fingernails digging into the skin of Steve’s back.

He’s passed caring about looking submissive or needy, his mind too focussed on how close they are and how _good_ it feels, letting Steve set the pace and get them there on _his_ terms.

The hand stroking them between their bodies has him holding on for as long as he can, trying not to tip over the edge until the last second, but then Steve’s bringing his left hand down toward his hip, tilted slightly up to let his leg wrap around Steve, and he’s reaching to grab at Billy’s ass.

Steve rubs a hand over his cheek, and then squeezes, kneading him in his in grip and it’s so possessive, he feels himself start to finally unravel.

Billy feels white-hot pleasure crash over him as he spills into Steve’s hand with him, hips stuttering as he alternates between trying to push back into the hand beneath him and forward into the one around his cock.

He floats in a hazy, blissed out place in his head until he’s coming back down to Earth, fighting to stay awake long enough to grab at Steve with uncoordinated hands.

Familiar, warm arms wrap around him and he’s being pulled in close, his face resting in the crook of Steve’s neck, and a hand is stroking up and down his back.

It’s the first time he’s fallen asleep naked with someone else.

Usually, he’ll throw his boxers on, make at least a half-hearted attempt to clean up so the next morning isn’t waking up sticky and gross, but he feels too tired and clingy and safe to bother, and Steve seems to have the same idea.

It’s the first time in years, long before Starcourt brought his facade crashing down around him, that he doesn’t feel like a flailing kid being tossed around in a tornado.

He’s in bed with the prettiest fucking boy he’s ever seen, and there’s no chance of Neil walking in on them and his body’s still fucked but Steve doesn’t seem to mind, and he’s actually kind of happy with how things are turning out.

It’s a welcome change.

**Author's Note:**

> Trust quarantine to kickstart me writing my first fic with smut in it.  
> The title is from the song Smokestacks =)  
> If anyone enjoyed this I'll probably upload a second part after I've updated Shelter, because when I started this I intended for them to actually have sex and for a few more explicit things to be thrown in (ie project some kinks onto Billy oops), but I wanted to kind of establish an intimacy between them first.
> 
> Please let me know if you enjoyed this or hated it or if the smut was the cringiest thing you've ever read (or maybe be gentle about that cause I might cry but feel free =) Reading people's comments is one of my favourite parts of posting, I love talking to people about Stranger Things, so come talk to me on here or anywhere else if you want to (But absolutely no pressure!) =)


End file.
